A robust GPS receiver self survey algorithm

To use a GPS receiver as an attitude sensor several system parameters, such as integer ambiguities, line biases, and baselines, need to first be determined. This operation is called the self survey. It also may require several subsystem aspects, such as cycle slip detection and repair. In this paper, a new self survey scheme is presented that is robust to initial guess errors in the survey parameters. This new approach first uses an attitude-independent method with double-differenced phase measurements to resolve the integer ambiguities, and then determines the remaining parameters using nonlinear least-square methods. The algorithm is verified with both simulated and real GPS receiver data.